Today, I'm going to be discussing my favorite speakers and the ones that really suck under the price of about $300 or less. I have reviewed a whole lot of speakers in the last two years—so many that it's actually surprising when I went back and looked. There's no possible way for me to cover every speaker that I reviewed, so what I've done is I boiled it down to a list of about 10. I'm going to go through that list pretty quickly, strike off the ones that are just flat-out terrible, and give you a quick brief overview of how those speakers sound. Then, I'm going to narrow that list down into something more tangible and dive into the data just a little bit. Otherwise, this video will just be way too long.
I'm going to be mixing this up with powered and passive speakers. If you don't know what the difference is, quite simply, powered speakers have a built-in amplifier, while passive speakers do not. We're going to go from the terrible to the all right to the good.
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Terrible Speakers
1. Presonus Eris 3.5 (Second Edition)
Starting off the list for terrible speakers is the Presonus Eris 3.5 (Second Edition). It's not a lot different from the first edition, so don't go out and buy the first edition thinking you're going to save a few bucks and get something better. With this speaker, there's about an 8 to 10 dB difference between the mid-range and the highs. If you don't know what that sounds like, let me give you an example by EQing out my vocal region like I'm doing now. You should be hearing mostly highs. If you think this sounds good, please get your ears checked. These speakers sound very hollow, and it's just frankly a very unnatural sound. But they are powered, and they do retail for about $90 to $100, so there's that.
2. Edifier S3000 Pro
Next up on the list is another speaker that I loathe—it is the Edifier S3000 Pro, which retails for about $299. There's about a 7 dB delta between the mid-range and the highs, so the example that I just gave you just kind of assume that it's similar in sound to that. There's also a high-Q bass boost around 70 Hz, so essentially what you get out of this speaker is a lot of boominess, except it's all really high. It sounds terrible. It's a bad speaker—don't buy it.
3. Yamaha NS-6490
Third on the bad list is the Yamaha NS-6490. Look, real fast—I don't care how you pronounce it. I'm going to call it Yamaha. I might call it Yamaha. It doesn't matter to me. These retail for about $230, give or take. They go on sale and then sometimes they go back to regular price. These are passive speakers, so you will need an amplifier for them. There's a mid-range suckout of about 5 dB. These do sound very bright in the room. There's a resonance around 80 Hz that just lights up with these speakers too. They are relatively low sensitivity at about 80.6 dB at 2.83 volts/1 meter, which is the standard for measuring sensitivity.
Meh Speakers
1. Kanto YU4
We'll move into the "meh" area of just "alright." You could do a lot better, but you could also do worse by buying the ones I just talked about. First up in that list is the Kanto YU4. It's a passive speaker, and these retail for about $180 per pair. Sensitivity is about 83.3 dB, so low but not as low as the Yamaha I just talked about. There's a mid-range suckout on this one of about 4 dB. It sounds very forward thanks to a resonance around 1 to 2 kHz. The bass extension on this one is not that low, with an F3 of about 82 Hz. For those of you who don't know, the F3 point is where the SPL is down about 3 dB compared to the mean sensitivity.
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2. Micca RB42
Next up is the Micca RB42, which retails for about $150 a pair and are also passive speakers with a sensitivity of around 79 dB. These have reasonable frequency response but poor in-room response. The reason for that is because of the crossover. Basically, the midwoofer does not hand off well to the tweeter. So, what's happening is that as the speaker is playing higher and higher frequencies, depending on the size of that midwoofer, the radiation pattern is narrowing up. It's not going out to the side of the wall or side room—it's narrowing up in its focus. Then, it hands off to the tweeter. A good crossover design will make sure that the handoff to the tweeter matches in directivity. In this particular case, what's happening is that focused beam is coming right at you from that midwoofer, and then that tweeter's coming in omnidirectional. Because of that, you have different sounds reflecting off the sidewalls than the sounds that you get coming right at you. So, the sounds that come right at you may sound pretty pleasant and overall good, but the reflections don't match that same sound characteristic. What you wind up with for this particular speaker is a very bright-sounding speaker in-room.
Okay Speakers
1. Sony SSCS5
Now, moving on to my "okay" category—yellow. First up is the Sony SSCS5. This is a darling of every reviewer because, honestly, affiliate link dollars. If you throw an Amazon affiliate link for something that's $150 and say that it sounds great, everybody's going to buy it. It's an easy impulse buy for most people. For what it's worth, you get about 4 to 6% commission off an Amazon affiliate link. So, I could make a video and say these things sound fantastic, and everybody would run out and buy them. But they don't sound fantastic—they sound okay. Sensitivity on these is good at about 86.2 dB, so you won't need a lot of amplifier power because these are passive speakers. There's a top panel resonance that makes these speakers sound pretty forward in about the 1 kHz region. Now, you may notice a theme here. The speakers that I discussed earlier had a mid-range suckout, and now we're getting to the point where some speakers have a forward sound to them. The reason for that is the ones that had that huge mid-range suckout have no proper baffle step compensation. There's no attempt to account for the difference in sensitivity between the tweeter and the midwoofer when you put the midwoofer in a cabinet. In this particular case, it is a top panel resonance that causes this sound to be a little bit forward. The other issue is there's a dip in the lower treble/upper mid-range area between about 2 to 4 kHz, and because of this dip, it really exacerbates that 1 kHz bump. So, you're getting this forward-recessed sound. That's the reason I wouldn't put the speaker higher. Some people may not care about that, but speakers that have pretty wildly deviating frequency response within a couple of octaves of each other drive me nuts.
2. ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2
Next up on this list is the ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2. Its sensitivity is around 81 dB, and they retail for about $180 per pair. This speaker has relatively low sensitivity. There's also some sibilance in the upper treble between like 5 to 7 kHz, so those "S" sounds are going to sound a little bit sharper on this speaker than some of the other speakers that I've discussed.
3. Neumi BS5P ARC
Finally, on my "not so bad" list is the Neumi BS5P ARC. The reason I like this speaker is because it comes with HDMI input and it has a subwoofer output. The Neumi retails for about $170 per pair. The Neumi is also a powered speaker. The frequency response linearity overall is pretty good, but there's a falloff in the upper high-frequency area where equalization would probably be beneficial if you have it. If you don't, you're going to notice that error, and upper frequency detail is probably going to be lacking.
Good Speakers
1. Polk Audio TSi200
Next up on the list are two speakers that I actually do give two thumbs up to, and I think for the price, they're probably the best that I've come across. First up is the passive Polk Audio TSi200, which retails for about $299 typically, but you can find them on sale anywhere from $200 to $250 per pair. Sensitivity on the speaker is about 86 dB. Its frequency response does dip kind of low, so its F3 is at around 63 Hz, so it gets some nice punchy bass. Good frequency response, but it does benefit from being placed near the wall behind the speaker. So, when I say that, I don't mean put it right next to the wall, but maybe a few inches from the wall will help the speaker be reinforced in that lower mid-range. Otherwise, there's a slight deviation between the lower mid-range and the upper mid-range, but it's not a big deal. It's a mostly neutral speaker in-room, but it does have a slight bump on-axis, so I do recommend toeing them out maybe 20 to 30 degrees.
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2. Kali Audio LP-6
Finally, on my list is the powered Kali Audio LP-6. These retail for about $299, and I think they're a pretty solid speaker. In fact, I've got a pair right here, and I've got a pair over here. I use this for my desktop monitors. They won't get crazy loud, so that's the one drawback to these speakers. Since they're an active design speaker, they have DSP in them, which limits the output overall. So, they're one of the lower output speakers in this group. But what they lack in SPL capability, they make up for in frequency response linearity. They're the best-sounding speaker overall in this particular group.
Conclusion
So, there you have it—my list of the best and worst speakers under $300. I hope you learned something and appreciate what I've shown you. If you have any questions, as always, please feel free to ask, and I'll try to fill in the blanks as best I possibly can. You've gotten a good idea of what I like, what I'm looking for in speakers, and which ones I think suck. Now, hopefully, you can make better purchase decisions—maybe not necessarily the ones that I've talked about here, but my past reviews or future reviews.
If you'd like to support what I'm doing here, you can do so in a couple of ways. One is to join me at Patreon.com, where I provide behind-the-scenes info, publish videos earlier, do polls, and interact with my community. The other way is to use any of my generic affiliate links. I'm not going to provide direct affiliate links to these speakers, so if you want to buy these and use my affiliate links, just go to my Amazon affiliate link or my Crutchfield affiliate link, click on that link, and then search for whatever it is you want to buy. I earn a small commission off of that at no additional cost to you, and it really helps me.
With all of that said, I will talk to you all later. Take care, and peace!
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